Finally buckling under pressure, EA changes Taliban game mode

Mike Luttrell, 1st October 2010

After months and months of unending negative press over the upcoming Medal of Honor game's ability to play as a member of the Taliban, that feature has been completely pulled.
The radical change to the game happens before it ever hit store shelves and allowed players to see exactly how the terrorist group was represented.

The upcoming Medal of Honor title is the first time in the series that it has gone away from a World War II setting and moved into modern-day warfare. It is set in Afghanistan and puts US soldiers against soldiers from al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

As originally planned, players who competed against each other would have to choose which side - the US or the Taliban - they wanted to be. It was the only way to offer a multiplayer competition mode that made sense. There was no way to play as a Taliban soldier in the regular, single-player mode.

However, once the mainstream media picked up on this idea that the game allows players to play as the Taliban and kill US soldiers, the sensationalistic headlines began and took on a life of their own.

Britain's secretary of defense said he was "disgusted" by the game but his comments were later ripped apart by people familiar with the game, as it was obvious he had no idea what the context of Taliban troops in the game actually was.

Nevertheless, to stop this whirlwind of bad press, EA has reportedly decided to make one minor change to the game. During multiplayer skirmishes now, instead of listing the Taliban side as "Taliban" it will simply be represented as the "Opposing Force" side. The fact that such a small change removes all notions of this being a US-soldier-killing Taliban simulation, shows just how little of an issue it ever was to begin with.